One sees no such banners in the Islamic world. Regimes there may deplore terrorism in Paris, but no one weeps for Charlie Hebdo.

For across that region, Islamism is rising, churches are being burned, and the remaining Christians are fleeing into exile. In Afghanistan, at the peak of the U.S. presence, a Muslim convert to Christianity was threatened with death and had to leave his own country in fear of his life.

If there is one goal that unites Boko Haram in Nigeria, al-Shabab in Somalia, al-Qaida in the Maghreb and Arabian Peninsula, ISIS in Syria and Iraq, the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, it is to cleanse their societies of non-believers and Westerners.

The journalistic freedom to trash Islam and the moral imperative to advance gay rights may be sacred causes in Europe. But one should probably put them on the back burner when crossing the Med.

The differences between a liberal secularized Europe and the Islamic world are irreconcilable. And it is their world, not ours, that is growing in numbers, militancy, converts, crusaders and confidence.